Undernews: November 18, 2012

Privacy SOS - The Department of
Defense and police in the area around the Hancock Air Field
near Syracuse, NY appear to have implemented a novel method
of stifling anti-drone war dissent.

The authorities have
issued "protective orders" barring a number of antiwar
activists from going anywhere near the base, including those
areas that have been designated "free speech" zones for
protest. Bizarrely, the protective orders are supposedly
meant to guard a named soldier at the base, Earl A. Evans.
None of the targeted activists have ever heard of Evans, let
alone harassed or intimidated him with their non-violent
antiwar activism. From David Swanson’s
account:

When nonviolent activist Paul Frazier
asked if the order to stay away from the base included
staying away from the weekly permitted demonstration area
across the street from the base, Onondaga County Sheriff’s
Department Lieutenant Daily said that if the “victim,”
Evans, finds it irritating then yes it would be a violation.
Sheriff’s Dept. Deputy Ferazolli then said, “I will do
one better. If I see you there I will arrest you, and it
will be a felony.”

Poynter - Pamela Engel, an Ohio
University student intern for the Scripps Howard Foundation
Wire in 2011, compiled data from 15 cabinet-level federal
departments (Justice Department, Homeland Security, State
Department, etc.). By email, she said she found these
overall rates for the resolution of FOIA
requests:

Anti- War - Israeli war planes have
struck two media buildings in Gaza City, injuring at least
eight journalists, including one who lost his leg, medical
officials say.

Separately, Israeli air strikes continued
in other parts of Gaza, including the north, where two
children were killed in raids on homes.

As the strikes
continued, the Israeli army said there had been no rockets
fired into the Jewish state since 9pm (local time) on
Saturday night, although around 7.30am there were reports of
alert sirens in the south of the country.

Buzz Feed - President Barack Obama fully
supported the Israeli Government's operations in Gaza,
speaking at the joint press conference in Thailand, where he
is on a state visit."There's no country on earth that
would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from
outside its borders," he said. "We are fully supportive of
Israel's right to defend itself."

Obama said the rocket
attacks were the "precipitating event" for the Israeli
operation, which to date has been mostly limited to an
aerial bombardment of Hamas government and military sites,
but is threatening to become a ground operation.

"We are
actively working with all the parties in the region to see
if we can end those missiles being fired without further
escalation of violence in the region," Obama said.

But
Obama echoed Israeli leaders, saying any "serious" attempt
to reach peace in the region begins "with no more missiles
being fired into Israel's territory."

Daily Kos - [Wal Mart has] filed an unfair labor practice charge against the
United Food and Commercial Workers, the union with which
non-union Walmart worker groups are affiliated. That's not a
tactic Walmart would bother with if it was confident it
could crush these workers' spirits as it's accustomed to
doing.

Activities over the past year or longer
"have caused disruptions to Walmart's business, resulted in
misinformation being shared publicly about our company, and
created an uncomfortable environment and undue stress on
Walmart's customers, including families with children,"
Walmart outside counsel Steven Wheeless said in a letter
sent on Friday to Deborah Gaydos, assistant general counsel
of the UFCW.

You know what creates an
uncomfortable environment and undue stress on people,
including families with children? Walmart's ridiculously low
pay scale and scanty opportunities for advancement, such
that, according to internal company
documents:

Low-level workers typically
start near minimum wage, and have the potential to earn
raises of 20 to 40 cents an hour through incremental
promotions. Flawless performance merits a 60 cent raise per
year under the policy, regardless of how much time an
employee has worked for the company. As a result, a "solid
performer" who starts at Walmart as a cart pusher making $8
an hour and receives one promotion, about the average rate,
can expect to make $10.60 after working at the company for 6
years.

That, combined with policies
intentionally keeping workers at part-time hours so they
don't qualify for benefits, is why so many Walmart employees
are forced to rely on food stamps and other public
assistance to make ends meet. Being kept poor is the sort of
thing that causes families with children just a little more
distress than being exposed to workers picketing outside of
stores.

Walmart's dismissive statements about the small
percentage of workers taking part in the protests are
accurate in a literal sense, but the decision to try to use
the law to shut the protests down reveals that something
bigger than the percentages is going on: this is the first
time Walmart has faced such sustained, defiant activism
against its abuses of workers. Usually when workers have
tried to fight the conditions they face, retaliation and
intimidation from managers have been enough to shut it down.
That's not working this time, and as the protests spread and
draw public notice, it seems that executives are nervous
enough to go beyond their usual tactics. And when they're
nervous, it's time to double down.

Firedog Lake - Before there was MSNBC
and Current TV, before there was The Huffington Post or The
Daily Show, before there was the progressive blogosphere,
before there was (and then wasn't) Air America, there was
Pacifica Radio.

Pacifica Radio was born out of the peace
movement of the World War II era. It was founded in
Berkeley, California by Lewis Hill, a Quaker, conscientious
objector and news reporter who refused to broadcast state
propaganda and wanted to start a media outlet that was not
controlled by war profiteers. Lewis founded KPFA in Berkeley
in 1949. Ten years later, its sister station went on the
air: KPFK in Los Angeles. Then over the next two decades
came three more stations: WBAI in New York, KPFT in Houston,
and WPFW in the nation's capitol.

Over the nearly six and
a half decades since KPFA's founding, Pacifica Radio has
been an unapologetic and uncompromising mouthpiece of the
anti-war movement, the labor movement, the civil rights
movement, the anti-colonial movement, the women's movement,
the student movement, the free speech movement, the LGBT
movement, the movement for a nuclear-free world, the
anti-apartheid movement, the immigrant right's movement, the
Central American solidarity movement, the sanctuary
movement, the environmental movement, the prisoners' rights
movement, the Occupy movement and the movement to get money
and corporate influence out of American politics.

Over
those years, Pacifica Radio brought the Beat poets to the
public airwaves. It stood up to McCarthy and faced an
investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee
for Communist subversion. It sent volunteers to the South to
cover the emerging Civil Rights Movement; the son of the
network's then-President was murdered along with two other
activists while registering black voters in Mississippi as
part of Freedom Summer. It showcased some of the world's
most prominent voices against the Vietnam War, and it put
Seymour Hersch on the air breaking the story of the massacre
at My Lai.

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